The term “cloud computing” generally refers to a model that makes computing resources available over a network as services. The network has backend computing devices that handle most of the processing and storage aspects of data generated by a client computer. For purposes of simplicity in this disclosure, “client computers,” will herein be referred to as “frontend computing devices.” Backend computing devices perform such functions as software application processing, data processing, and data storage, each function related to data generated by frontend computing devices. The backend computing devices connect via networks to a number of frontend computing devices and may share processing functions and storage areas for the data generated from multiple frontend computers. The frontend computing devices typically receive software applications from one or a group of backend computing devices or rely on in-built supporting applications, and a received software application is rendered on the frontend computing device to create a fully functional user interface with a secure communication channel for interacting with the backend computing devices.
Physical computing devices that support cloud computing on the backend typically support virtual computing processes, such as deployment and maintenance of virtual machines (VM) over the physical computing devices. The virtual machines function as a low level interface between any type of operating system (OS) overlying the VM and hardware underlying the VM. This allows any OS, where each OS is supported by different types of file structures, to function on any physical device within the cloud. Virtual software applications deploy on the VM operating system in a cloud environment, and the frontend computing device relies on received images of the virtual software application screen on a support application (e.g., an internet browser) to function as a user-interface.
A user on the frontend computing device interacts with the user interface, thereby creating new application data on the rendered software application. The software application continuously updates the backend computing device with the new application data generated at the user interface. The application data is processed and stored on the backend computing devices, after which it is transmitted for display to the user via the software application of the frontend computing device. The rendered software application is typically a web-enabled software application accessible to the frontend computing device via a supporting application (e.g., a browser like Internet Explorer® or Mozilla Firefox®) or via a web-enabled stand-alone user-interface support application (e.g., a Java based user-interface application). The immediate benefit of cloud computing processes is the decreased dependency of the software application on the physical and operating system capabilities of the frontend computing device.
The performance of the frontend computing devices can be limited by factors that are not significantly dependent on the processing hardware, such as network connectivity and the user-interface application for interacting with the software application. The user-interface software application typically supports client-side and service-side scripting platforms. While client-side and server-side languages may be interchanged in many current web-based applications, some common examples of client-side web applications may include JavaScript and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), while Java and Perl are typically considered to be server-side scripting languages. A software application created for a cloud environment is typically optimized to function within the requirements of the cloud. Within the cloud environment, provisions for software applications across different VMs for a single business may also lack cross-functional capability in terms of sharing data across software applications, where each software application resides in its own VM.
Many online businesses seek to transfer and customize enterprise software applications from physical computing devices to a cloud environment. Additionally, cloud computing service providers host the software applications and typically charge fees for delivery of software applications to frontend computing devices, where the software application is standardized for all online businesses that use the software application. Online businesses prefer software applications that are customized by developers to extend the functionality by benefiting from being based in a cloud environment. Such functionalities may relate to how the software application utilizes cloud resources, where cloud application software modules control the administration of the cloud domain, including software and hardware provisioning of resources. Customizations require access to the cloud domain, in a programming context, to fully exploit the capabilities of the cloud environment for existing enterprise software applications prior to converting the software application for the cloud.